


Alone Again

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Dokken (Band), Music RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Band Drama, Blood, Cocaine, Drugs, Face Slapping, Gen, Paranoia, glass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 10:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12703230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: The drug-induced tensions of Dokken as seen from Don's point of view.





	Alone Again

Lying in my bunk on the bus with a book, I look up and check the time.

_Shit, has it really been almost three hours since we stopped the bus? And is it 1:30 AM on a night we don't have a show, the night before we have an early evening show?_

Our bassist, Jeff Pilson, has gone and gotten himself screwed up. All I knew was he had a bottle of wine and a gram of cocaine. And he locked himself in the bus bathroom at around 6:30 PM. We have not seen him since, nor have we been able to get him out. And I'm pretty pissed at him for it.

George and I tried to get him out around 10:45. I had tried to get him out earlier, around 8:00, because I don't like the concept of cocaine, and him being locked up while using it is something that scares me -especially when mixing it with alcohol. I couldn't get him out, so I figured I'd leave it a while longer before really worrying about it. Then nature called George a little after 10:30, and Jeff wouldn't open the door for him. I was in the same boat myself, so I tried to help George get Jeff out.

Of course, helping resulted in a lot of accidental bumping into each other, swearing and 'well what-do-you-want-me-to-do's' between the two of us. Ray, our driver, stopped at 11:00, so we got off the bus with Mick and used the facilities there. After that, George seemed not to care about Jeff being barricaded, as it was no longer an inconvenience for himself. He's chilling in the lounge, fooling with his guitar.

I keep trying every 30 minutes or so to get him to open up though, as I try to follow a normal schedule of pre-bedtime hygiene while on the bus, and can't really do that too well without the sink, or my supplies that are stored in the small cabinet above the sink. And while I could skip it just for tonight, to be honest, I'm getting scared about Jeff. It's been almost 8 hours, for crying out loud!

I climb out of my bunk and see that Mick has come in and is chilling on the couch, watching TV.

"Mick, we have a problem."

"What is it, Don?"

"Jeff's still barricaded."

"Huh? I thought he came out and was in the lounge with George! Shit!"

"We're gonna have to get him out of there. It's not safe for him to be locked up if he's got drugs with him. If he passes out..." I trail off.

"Yeah, I get that. I'm surprised you waited this long to tell me." Mick looks at me confused, knowing that usually I probably would complain about it sooner. It's late and I can't get ready for bed, and none of us other than Jeff are able to access the lav at all.

"Well, I tried to get him out myself earlier -and George did too, because we needed to go, but then the driver stopped, so it was alright. I was hoping he'd come out on his own in a couple hours after that, but it's been almost three now, and that's not counting how long he was there before." I pause a second. "...I'm scared, Mick."

Mick gets up, goes over and knocks on the door.

"Jeff? You hear me in there? What's the deal? Come on out!"

There's a shriek inside when Mick knocks on the door, as if Jeff is scared of him. Paranoia. Something's up. 

"Come on, Jeff -just come out. I wanna get ready to go to bed. And even if I didn't need to come in there for that, you need to come out anyway. Sooner or later, George and Mick are going to need access too!" I knock on the door and use a more impatient tone than Mick.

"Leave me alone! Please! Don't attack me! I don't have anything!"

"Oh trust me, everyone on this bus knows you do. We're not going after you because of that. Just come out from there." I knock again.

Jeff doesn't answer. It's silent, and that's scary.

Mick looks at the door.

"Think we can force it open, Don?"

"I don't know, but I'm not against trying it! It pulls open." I yank on the door and feel pretty stupid, because it's not going anywhere -and since it's locked, it's not supposed to either.

"We gotta force the lock loose. Here, you keep tugging on it, and I'll try to knock it loose."

The door rattles hard as I pull on it while Mick begins slamming the lock mechanism hard from the outside with his fist. He hikes his leg up and gives it a good slam with his heel. I feel like I'm going to get kicked in the head and land myself with a concussion if he misses, or loses his balance should the bus take a sudden turn.

It's working though. The door is budging a bit; it's shifting around in its frame as I tug on it.

"Keep going, Mick, it's working," I say, panting from the exertion of yanking on the door.

With a final slam, Mick and I finally manage to jar the lock of the door open, and it swings out toward us so that I nearly get smacked in the face.

There's a scream from inside.

I look over at Jeff.

He's leaning with his back against the shower door, lines of coke on the floor, bottle of wine held clumsily in his hand, half-consumed, yet huddled tensely in a defensive position, cowering. His eyes, huge with their notorious stoned look, slowly gaze up at Mick and I with dread. His reaction is impaired and sluggish due to drunkenness. As soon as he sees it's just Mick and I though, the defensive look leaves him and he relaxes to slump against the shower. His eyes still had a semi-crazed look in them as always from the coke, but the flash of fear in them is gone. His gaze travels back downward, lazily, and he gives us a grin of stupor.

"Oh boy, Jeff, are you trashed!" exclaims Wild Mick. There's a hint of a chuckle in his voice, as he's been pretty bad off before, many times along with Jeff and George. But, this is far worse than what he's ever done, and I can tell he's definitely concerned -even scared -about the current condition of our youngest bandmate.

Now usually Jeff can carry himself to a point even whilst screwed up, but whatever coke and alcohol he's been doing in here is an extremely dangerous thing mixed together. And he's slumped against the wall and moving uncoordinated. That's something I almost never see, and it's bad. This is one of his severe benders. I'm especially concerned given he didn't recognize Mick and I when we were telling him to open the door, and thought we were law enforcement officers who were there to get him in trouble. That's not something we've ever seen.

Jeff looks at Mick, head lolling back against the shower door, and he giggles drunkenly, eyes darting back and forth, all fear and inhibitions gone now.

I am suddenly furious. I'm so mad at Jeff. Mad at him for scaring us all. Mad at him for risking getting us in serious trouble -multiple lines of coke on the floor in plain sight?! Mad at him personally with how his drug use with Mick and George is leaving me isolated in my own band. I'm especially mad at him for locking himself up whilst achieving an extremely dangerous condition. It would have been near impossible for us to get to him should he have needed help. 

But more than anything, I'm just scared out of my wits that he's going to have a heart attack and drop into a coma right here in front of me from the high and alcohol poisoning. And I'm mad at him for that. Mad at him for doing this -this thing that could potentially kill him. He may isolate himself and be more social with George due to the drugs. But he doesn't fight or threaten me directly like George. He's like my hyper little brother, and I don't want to lose him to something so stupid.

I take a step forward into the minimal floor space of the tiny bathroom, and fix Jeff with the most intense death glare I've ever given. I always thought I'd end up giving it to George. Not Jeff.

"Y'seem angry, Don. 'owcome?" he slurs, still giggling, looking up with a semi-hyper look in his eyes beyond the drunken haze.

I snatch the bottle out of his hands and pour it all out in the sink despite my own wish to down the rest of it all and go to bed drunk to forget it all. The only reason I don't is it'd be pretty stupid to scold him for doing something and then do half of the dirty deed myself. And, tensions are bad enough with one wasted member on the bus. 

But I can't control myself, and as soon as all the liquid is down the drain, I slam the bottle against the basin. Hard.

It shatters, leaving glass chunks scattered about the room.

Jeff looks up, shuddering and guarding his eyes with his hands until the glass settles.

Mick stands in the doorway, stunned. He slowly backs off.

I lower myself down and look Jeff right in the eyes. I have never seen pupils this blown. I'm surprised he can bear the lights being on.

"I am angry. Because I'm scared, ashamed, and hurt that you would do something this stupid, Pilson. I hope you're sorry for it -and I'm sure you will be, at least when you come crashing down hungover!" 

I snarl my words and glare into Jeff's eyes, which are growing less hazy again with concern. But he doesn't get it. It's going to take more than just a scolding. And it breaks my heart, but damn it, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do if you're the only one willing to take charge of a situation going out of hand.

"...And I'm sorry for this too."

Before Jeff even can realize what's happening through his impaired vision, my right hand comes swiping in from the side, the air swishing around it with the speed, and audibly slaps across his left cheek, leaving it red, and without a doubt, stinging profusely.

There's a cold, spreading feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I feel terrible as Jeff's eyes begin to widen, terror flashing through them once more -and a thousand times worse than when Mick and I got the door knocked open.

But I find my right hand swinging back to smack the other side of his face. Not quite as hard as the first one, but more than enough to drive the point home.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to kill yourself. So help me God, Jeff, if you EVER do that again!" I shout, not even finishing my threat, my voice breaking off as my throat grows tight.

I don't even force myself to finish it because I know that even if he decided to not do it again on his own, at some point, he'd end up getting screwed up with George, and eventually it would build back up to an episode like this that I can only hope won't be as bad. Because this is the worst I've seen. I swallow hard against the tightness, pushing the feeling away, and I watch Jeff.

Jeff slowly reaches a shaking, drunken hand up against his left cheek that received the first hit. He tries to shrink back away from me, his expression like that of an abused and frightened puppy. His breathing quickens to short, frantic breaths as he can't back up any further against the shower door. 

His doe-like eyes are big as saucers and full of bewilderment. Though bloodshot to begin with, now they are becoming red-rimmed. Shining wetness begins to stand along his lower eyelids, threatening to overflow. 

He's a complete mess. And I'm disgusted at him for what he's done, but I'm also disgusted with myself for jumping at him. Even if it had to be done. George and Mick aren't going to tell him that he's crossed the line, even if they know it because they do the coke and are high all the time with Jeff too. I'm not. I find myself getting drunk out of my mind some days to block out their drugged up craziness, but I don't understand why coke is so appealing. Especially seeing Jeff's paranoid state.

George is coming into the bathroom now, having heard me yelling at Jeff after all the racket when Mick pounded the door open.

I so much as shift into the doorway so that George can see into the room, and Jeff whimpers, turning sideways and scampering backwards. I wince as the heel of his hand lands on a piece of glass. However, in his overstimulated state, his touch is hypersensitive, and he cries out and snatches his hand up from the razor sharp fragment before he puts too much weight on it and it can cut deeply. There still is a bloody line along his hand though, and as he climbs back a bit more, it leaves blood smeared on the tile.

_I did that..._ I'm the one who broke that glass -out of anger. Because even though I don't like to publicly admit it, I know just as well as everyone else knows that I'm out of control too. If in a very different way from my bandmates.

Jeff huddles between the sink and the toilet, curling in a ball, raising his hands up over his face and cowering. Shielding himself as if he's scared that I'm going to come over there and hit him again.

George looks down at me and glares. His pupils are blown enough that I know he's high and consumed coke himself. But he's not in a stupor. Whether he was headed that way before he got distracted by this, God only knows. I don't think I want to know. He's becoming more and more physically violent lately whenever he's high.

"What is all this?!" he demands, pointing at all the glass on the floor.

I just shake my head. I've had enough. I don't want to fight him over this. Not tonight. I just want to be in my bunk and have it be so this never happened. And I really want to just get back in my bunk and have this be over, at least for a few hours.

George surveys the glass and the coke on the floor, then Jeff, still cowering between the sink and toilet, shivering violently. He's sobering up -I can tell -even if the high is still there. He'll be puking his guts up soon. I'm not sure if I should leave, or be there when it happens. So that he knows that I didn't smack him just because, and that I really am concerned about him.

But George, as always, gets to make the decision for me. His expression softens, kneeling down by Jeff after kicking the glass pieces aside from the space. Jeff may not hate me, but he's always going to trust George more. And he's always going to be closer to George, because of drugs. These stupid, horrible drugs that caused this whole fiasco to happen.

A shaking hand reaches out after a paranoid second of Jeff looking at George with his terrified expression, before realizing it's him. He grabs George's hand and squeezes it so tightly his knuckles turn white. By the way George flinches, I know it's probably ice cold with fear and the shock all the chemicals in his body have put him in.

George looks over at me. He doesn't glare, and his expression is still soft, but a spark of disgust is clear in his eyes.

"You scared him, Don."

He doesn't say anything more. Everything else he'd like to say, he's already said it before to me numerous times, and behind my back while I was in my bunk and he thought I couldn't hear him. Somehow, it hurts more, hearing those words echo in my mind against the pitch silence of the bathroom. It's nearly unbearable. And Mick, in his shock, even as my best friend in the band, is definitely not going to have anything else to say to me tonight. A curse, and a blessing.

Jeff's shoulders hitch as a spasm cuts through his body. George quickly pulls him out from between the two fixtures, and pushes him over the toilet just before he wretches and dispels the remaining wine in his stomach. Hopefully, enough to keep him from absorbing a dangerous amount for how high he is.

Jeff coughs a few times, gagging and trying to reach up to wipe his nose. There's no way that that didn't burn, having puke come out of his nose after snorting coke. George seems to know too, him from experience and not from accounts of the effects of things. 

He pats Jeff gently on the back, between the shoulder blades, and strokes his hair, trying to comfort him. Jeff finishes throwing up, and unable to brace himself up any longer, he collapses and throws himself desperately against George, clinging to him and trembling. He stares at me constantly, a look of intense fear. His eyes are still huge, hair mussed, his cheeks red from where I slapped them and streaked with wet trails as tears slide down them.

George looks over at me, gently wrapping his arms around Jeff in a protective way. He glares. Not an intense one, but enough to make it clear that I'm not wanted in this situation any longer.

"I think I can handle this mess on my own now, Don. Jeff would like it if you left the room. And quite frankly, so would I."

Those are some of the most relieving words I've heard all evening. God knows, I want nothing more than to get away from this scene. I can't bear it. And now I've been given permission.

But they're also the most cutting words. Because I'm being sent away before I can figure out how to approach Jeff. Show him that he doesn't need to be afraid of me. That the reason I hit him was to wake him up to the situation he was in, and the reason I said those things is because I care.

No, George is going to take care of Jeff now. He's going to sit with him until he passes this dangerous state, comfort him when he crashes down and is miserable, and give him a shoulder to cry on while he tries to stop panicking over this big round of hoopla that just happened.

All the while, it's just isolating us more. Driving the wedge even deeper between us.

So I back out of the bathroom doorway. Mick sees me leave, and decides as soon as I'm gone and there's space for another body in the cramped bus bathroom that *now* is a good time to go in with the crappy, hand-held vacuum and attempt to clean up that glass that I may have cleaned myself if I'd been given half the chance. But if he wants to clean it, I'm not gonna complain -once less thing I have to deal with. As long as later on nobody acts like I refused to clean it up so that Mick had to do it. That's not fair. And it seems to be George's favorite game to play -especially since he knows -even if I try not to show it -it pisses me off more than anything else. Of course, I've never been a good actor or pretender, so it probably shows clearly.

I get that Jeff and George are best friends and will always be closer with each other. I don't expect them to include me in everything. And I don't expect George to like me either. He hates me now -so be it. 

I just wish he'd respect me like in the early days, and not shove me out of the scene every single time something comes up and blame every bit of it on me.

Climbing into my bunk, I cover myself up with my makeshift blanket curtain and curl up on my side behind it, trying to get my head to quit spinning with all the fucked up things that happened in the past 20 minutes. Only 20 minutes, according to my watch. It felt like an eternity -it really happened that fast?!

I hear the vacuum run for about two minutes while Mick gets up the smaller shards of glass that were too small to safely pick up by fingertip and place in the trash can. I hear some commotion outside my bunk, and can see through the minuscule gap between the blanket and the bunk post, as George makes his way down past me to the other set of bunks behind the headboard of this one. He's supporting Jeff, who is slumped over his shoulder, legs barely able to hold up.

I can hear him help Jeff into the lower bunk, just beyond my headboard, so I can hear everything.

"Lay on your side. I think you're done throwing up, but if you're not, you don't want to choke," sighs George. I can hear a plastic bag crinkle. At least he thought to put something there so that if Jeff were to happen to wake up and get sick again, there was a chance it wouldn't be across the floor of the bus.

"George... H-hurts," Jeff whimpers, sniffling. I can't tell if he's sniffling because he's still crying, or just because of how much his nose must be running after that insane amount of coke. "S-so cold." He's chattering; starting coming down off his high now.

"I know. Just go to sleep, Jeff," orders George.

There's a slight squeaking sound from the bunk being jostled slightly.

"Stop shifting your head around and just lie down -you're gonna make yourself dizzy and get sick again," warns George.

"Lying on my cheek. It hurts," murmurs Jeff.

Good God, I know he deserved it, but if there was anything more than that tiny, vulnerable whimper to induce a gut wrenching guilt trip. Especially since I'm at fault for that.

"I'm not surprised. But Don's just a prick -you know it. Just lay still and go to sleep. You'll be okay."

Oh really, I'm a prick for being mad at Jeff because Mick and I had to break a door open to stop him from nearly overdosing whilst locked up in there? I know I didn't have to hit him, and I probably shouldn't have slapped him that hard. I was angry and I snapped. But again, I did it because I wanted to scare him into realizing just how severe this is. How dangerous this is.

After a few seconds, the rustling of sheets and creaking of the bunk quiets. Jeff is out. Hopefully he won't be too hungover when he wakes up, as it'll just make things worse by leading to more drama in the morning. But that's probably asking too much.

I hear a set of footsteps as Mick walks back into the room.

"Alright, the glass is up, I wiped down the floor, and put the stuff away from cleaning his hand up," Mick sighs.

"He says he's in pain -didn't want to put his cheek on the pillow and was crying about it. Scared out of his wits," explains George. "Starting to come down from it too and just wants to be warm under his blankets."

"Well, George, he did a lot more coke in there than you two usually do together, and he's drunk, so that's not helping," reasons Mick. It seems he's the only one on this bus right now who wants to acknowledge that this isn't entirely my doing. The only one who's partially on my side -and I'm grateful for that. More than he'll realize. But, he's bound to say something against me before this night is over.

"Sometimes I can't help but wonder what things would be like if we just hung this up, you know? If the three of us, Mick -you, Jeff, and I -were to just leave and do something on our own so that we don't have to deal with our impossible singer," George says caustically.

That hurt. It's something he's said about me many times, but it hurts and never stops hurting. It always causes this deep ache in the pit of my stomach, and this tightness in my chest. Like something's being squeezed in there and it's hard to breathe. My eyes are burning, but I'm not going to cry. Not going to call attention from them to myself when George is in his negative mode.

"I'm sure we could do okay, but Don is a part of why we've made it, just as much as we all are. Breaking our identify from Dokken would be hard, and nobody would respect us until they dissociated us from that vocal sound. And that's the other thing. Who'd we get for a strong vocal sound that could set us apart? All bands have their disagreements, George," sighs Mick. "I'm not pleased with Don over tonight and I could slap him the way he slapped Jeff right now, but it happens sometimes in bands -unfortunately, we're one of the ones where it's more frequent."

"That's because Don has to be an ego-driven ass. Jeff's got a voice more powerful than his -we could just go as a three piece and not even need Don if Jeff were to sing and play bass," George snarls.

That's always the worst. They want to get rid of me. I'm the one who got this band started, I'm the one who got Jeff in this band and took George on by recommendation. I do say all the time that he is an incredible player. The guy could be the next Van Halen if he wanted to, and I've tried to help him become that.

"Well, maybe someday if it comes to that. I think it's been a rough night and we need to go to sleep before tensions get going any higher," decides Mick.

There's a rattle as he climbs the ladder to the bunk above mine. I use the moment he's climbing up to flip over onto my back undetected. My heart is racing, and it's hard to breathe. It's like being electrocuted inside. I can't fully describe it. The pain almost feels better when I curl up, but then I feel like I'm suffocating. 

"You getting in your bunk, George?" asks Mick.

"Oh no." George instead goes on the couch across from the bunks. "I'm gonna be down here, in case Jeff has a problem. Which wouldn't be the case if Don weren't such a drama queen over everything."

Honestly, even I know I have a tendency to be dramatic. I'll admit it. But isn't George being dramatic enough tonight too?

"George, just turn the light off and go the fuck to bed..." groans Mick.

There's a click and the area beyond my blanket curtain goes dark as George reaches out and switches off the lamp in our bunk area, and then there's silence.

And I just feel so isolated and alone. Alone again. There are three other people within this tiny area of the bus, and they might as well not be there, because they don't want me here. I don't fit in with them because I chose not to partake in *one* measly but oh-so-destructive hobby of theirs.

It's hard, but I slowly heave a sigh silently, trying to settle down as my heart rate is beginning to come back to earth, but not without a couple of irregular beats. Band drama happens, just like Mick says, but it shouldn't be severe enough to cause heart palpitations. I feel stray tears seep out of the corners of my eyes and roll down my temples and into my hair, and hope that's all, because I don't want to cry and have George realize that he hurt me just now. Because he'll keep going as revenge for Jeff. It's a sickening feeling, lying here in this state, but it's not unfamiliar.

It's probably an hour or so before I succumb to sleep. But I know when I wake up, it'll continue. Maybe there won't be all this direct drama like tonight, but everyone's going to be all tense, George will be passive aggressive toward me, or he'll hold a silent grudge. Mick is going to be quiet and unlike himself because he's not going to want to deal with it or pick sides. 

And Jeff is going to be one sick and miserable puppy. A sick puppy that I hope will wake up knowing that he doesn't have to be scared of me.

**Author's Note:**

> The first Dokken fic I wrote, backing up here. Proof that as much as I love Jeff Pilson, I'm aware he's not entirely innocent in the 80s Dokken drama.


End file.
